Qatar Telecom Q4 profit rises 14.6pc

Doha, March 4, 2013

Qatar Telecom, now known as ooredoo, reported a 14.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit on Sunday as higher revenue in its home market, Indonesia and Iraq offset declining earnings from Kuwaiti unit Wataniya and Oman's Nawras .

The former monopoly, which renamed itself ooredoo last week, made a net profit of 523 million Qatar riyals ($143.7 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, up from 456 million in the year-earlier period, it said in an emailed statement.

Ooredoo made an annual net profit of 2.94 billion riyals ($807 million) in 2012, up from 2.61 billion in 2011.

Two analysts polled by Reuters had forecast ooredoo would make a quarterly profit of between 761 million riyals and 1.02 billion.

Ooredoo, which operates in 16 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, said it would pay a cash dividend of 5 riyals per share.

Ooredoo has spent about $3.9 billion in the past 12 months upping its stakes in some foreign units, taking majority control of Iraq's Asiacell, while it now owns 90 percent or more of Kuwait's Wataniya, through which it holds controlling stakes in operators in Tunisia and Algeria.